Farm updates. Courtesy of God of Rain.

We have succeeded in "beating the rain" and all the work that might have been delayed by rain is done.

Carpenter - A weed strip spray is applied, replant sites have been backhoed, the pruning is finished and the brush has been chipped. All that remains for the near future is to fumigate the replant sites.

Whitmore - Ground preparation is completed, including ripping, leveling, fumigation, putting up the berms and marking the tree sites. The only remaining task to be done before planting is to install the irrigation system.

Cleaning up inter-row space - Carpenter ranch:

Clean row middles:

Whitmore ranch:

Laser leveling tripod:

Wanna make some berms?

This is how they are made..

When you drive by any orchard,  you might have observed that they feature row after row of trees straight in symmetrical beauty. You might have wondered how they planted those rows so straight, right? Well, using a GPS controlled tractor, like in the pics below.

They use a guidance system to first measure the field and program into the computer the row spacing as desired by us. Once they input the field coordinates, they use GPS and satellite imagery to put markers all over the ground, with a precision of 1-inch. 

Here you just see the GPS controlled tractor making berms. Once it is done, it will go install markers where new plants will go.

Berms at Whitmore

A berm is simply a mound of earth with sloping sides. Berms or mounds may serve one or a combination of the following functions:

• Moves water down and away from the tree's root system
• Effective fertilizer usage
• Create more aeration in the soil so leading to rapid rooting of developing tree

This is the almond field. Straws will be inserted at each tree location for the almonds and the candycots tomorrow.

Orchard visit..

Delicately grooming our Bride of Ground!

In anticipated arrival of those green groom-lings. Can't stand the dramatic flair? All right. We are preparing the ground for almond tree planting!

Someone drove off the road, took out the power pole and 80 foot length of the fence!

First of all, I hope that nobody got hurt! 

But, come on people! Watch where you are driving. This is second time this kinda thing happened at Whitmore. 

We only came to know of this when Lane first saw TID replacing a power pole along Whitmore Ave. He immediately notified me. Yes, fence was my idea! And I'm still big on maintaining a fence around the ranch. I will probably ask Rafael to fix it if he can.

For now, we contacted the police and was instructed what to do. Lane will go in and request a police report. It will include the information about the driver unless they drove off, and hopefully they will be insured so we can make a claim for the fence repair.  We'll see how this goes!

Finishing up soil fumigation is not being as easy as I expected..

I guess I spoke prematurely. The primary soil fumigant, Telone, is in short supply. Looks like we need a lot of it to cover all the open ground. There are very few suppliers of fumigation services. I wonder why we cannot consider alternatives like methyl bromide.

We are talking to Chris B, who has a relationship with TriCal, a primary supplier, and has asked them to be sure that at least the Candycot blocks are fumigated. We will see what happens. Rumor has it that supplies may loosen up soon.